Citizen Journalism by Josh Mull

[The following is an essay written for Enduring America]

In Scott Lucas’s recent article “Mr. Obama’s War: The Fantasy of the Pakistan Sanctuaries,” he analyzes US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’ appearance on Meet the Press, pointing out the cognitive dissonance in Gates’ assertion that the US understands safe havens in Pakistan because it has used those same Pakistani safe havens so effectively before. But Prof. Lucas also raises some very interesting questions, particularly over Gates’ apparent non-answer to host David Gregory’s question regarding the consequences of the US campaign to the Pakistani state. This is my attempt to answer those questions, as well as an attempt to parse out a broader US “grand strategy” from Gates’ appearance.

David Gregory asked Gates, “the trouble and consequences of jihadists making significant gains in either Afghanistan or Pakistan is perhaps more acute in Pakistan given its nuclear potential. True?” In reply, Gates’ offered this: “Well, as long as we’re in Afghanistan and as long as the Afghan government has the support of dozens and dozens of countries who are providing military support, civilian support in addition to us, we are providing a level of stability in Afghanistan that at least prevents it from being a safe haven from which plots against the United States and the Europeans and others can be, can be put together.”

The key is this: Gates isn’t answering the question about Pakistan to David Gregory. He’s answering the question about Pakistan directly to the Pakistanis.

I read that as “Well, as long as I can go on Sunday morning Prime Time and say 9/11, Taliban, Osama bin Laden and my Commander in Chief can draw crowds of 200,000 screaming Europeans, Pakistan can suck it up and deal with whatever we want to do, including destabilizing or overthrowing their corrupt government and/or stealing or destroying their illegal nuclear weapons, which by the way, I already have the authority to do from a little thing called the Lugar-Obama bill.”

In short, it’s not the responsibility of the Secretary of Defense to keep Pakistan stable, it is his responsibility to attack extremist safe havens in Pakistan in order to prevent a catastrophic terrorist attack against the US, Canada, or the European Union. President Obama, and by extension the plans of his secretary of defense, enjoys bipartisan political support as well as stable international credibility, and accordingly, the US will act, as Prof. Lucas said in his article, as if “there are no consequences whatsoever for the internal Pakistani situation,” or more appropriately, without regard to these consequences.

But there is more we can glean from Secretary Gates interview than it appears. Beyond the purposes Prof. Lucas pointed out, pitching Obama’s Iraq withdrawal plan and articulating US Afghanistan policy, it’s possible Gates was offering us, and the international audience, insight into the broader strategic calculations of the United States, particularly the role the Department of Defense and US military power abroad.

President Obama has shown himself to be somewhat of a Centrist, if only in regard to his desire to hear from all sides of an argument or debate. One thing all foreign policy and national security analysts, from the Conservative “Fall of Rome” crowd to the Realist “Second World” type all the way to the Neoconservative “Team America” folks, can agree on is this: The United States of America is now and will continue to be Earth’s preeminent military force, at least for the foreseeable future.

There is a saying amongst foreign policy elites, always some paraphrase of “Who has the world’s largest air force after the US Air Force? The US Army.”

With Pakistan, Gates is essentially saying that, as long as the US, Canada, and Europe are threatened by extremist attacks from Afghanistan and Pakistan, the US will continue to act aggressively with its military force, in any manner and on any territory of its choosing, provided they have the support and cooperation from Europe and NATO (whose members will suffer from terrorism long before the US). What’s absent is any mention of India, implying the support of India in Afghanistan and protection from Pakistan-launched, “Mumbai-style” attacks are not part of the US calculation. (“Your problem, not ours.”)

It may seem like Gates casually forgot to mention India and Mumbai in his response on Pakistan, after all, “AfPak” is an extremely complicated subject and it’s easy to leave things out or get things mixed up. At least, that will be the talking point if this becomes an issue. However, we know two things: that India and Pakistan are inextricably linked together in any strategic calculus, and second, that this wasn’t just a casual visit to Meet the Press by Bob Gates. It was the public coming out ceremony for George W Bush’s former and now President Obama’s current Secretary of Defense, civilian leader of the United States Military.

The importance of this public appearance can’t be understated. It was not necessarily designed for the domestic audience of NBC viewers, but rather was aimed at a more global audience. As I noted above with Gates’ answer on Pakistan, he was answering it directly to the Pakistanis. And this is what makes the apparently deliberate absence of India from the “AfPak” equation so significant. The absence, the answer, and the entire interview together could lead us to presume that Gates is essentially articulating the prototype for what will later be called “the Obama Doctrine.”

The “Obama Doctrine” looks something like this: The United States will continue to use its military power as its premiere tool in international affairs, and may even act preemptively, however not on issues it deems outside of reasonable American national security concerns, and only with support and cooperation from the international community. To put it frankly, something like a cross between “walk softly and carry a big stick” and the Buddy System. While still violent, imperial and aggressive, it is a marked departure from the so-called Bush Doctrine and even the Global War on Terror.

The India-Pakistan(/Kashmir/Bangladesh) conflict is the perfect illustration. Under the old rules of the Bush Doctrine, the response to something like the Mumbai attacks might be airstrikes, special forces, or some other combination of clandestine military force. Under the “Obama Doctrine,” the Defense Department under Gates, and thus the US military, are not responsible for the India-Pakistan conflict. Rather this would fall under the portfolios of US Attorney General Eric Holder and his FBI as well US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her cadres of ambassadors and envoys, not to mention support and cooperation from that throbbing heart of diplomacy in Brussels (European Union), law enforcement agents with Interpol and NATO, and the mediation and oversight of the United Nations.

Obviously it’s an extreme departure from George W Bush’s radical Napoleonic-cum-Bolshevik strategy of the Global War on Terror, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the “Obama Doctrine” will turn out any more successfully than the Bush Doctrine. In fact, the strategy is brimming with vulnerabilities.

Sticking with Pakistan-India, though the US may be the most powerful military, it is not the only military on the planet. In the fall of 2007 as civil unrest was broiling in Pakistan under General Pervez Musharaff, then-Senator now Vice President Joe Biden campaigned in the Democratic Party primaries on a promise to pull strategic military aid from Pakistan, that is weapons used against India, in order to pressure Pakistan to focus on the insurgency rather than more ethereal, strategic conflicts. In response, however, the Chinese offered to sell Pakistan a new fleet of MiG fighter jets, similar to the American planes Biden was threatening to withdraw. Now, as then, there is a constant danger that any diplomatic “sticks” threatened by the US can simply be neutralized by other international actors willing to take its place.

Furthermore there is the problem caused by the global financial meltdown and the massive economic depressions its causing. While Secretary Gates may have in his authority to bomb Pakistani safe havens as well as police the Straits of Malacca, the United States may not ultimately be able to afford the high price of imperialism. And if the US is forced to cut back on its imperalist designs, it will create some extremely uncomfortable strategic questions for policy makers. For example, what is the higher priority between preventing a bus bombing in London or preventing a missile exchange between Korea and Japan when you can’t afford both?

But so we don’t end on such a morbid tone, let me point out that this prototypical “Obama Doctrine” has some very powerful advantages over the Bush Doctrine, the Global War on Terror, and the so-called Long War/Great Game theories. The most important advantage is that it is absolutely conscious of and constructed on the idea of a “Multi-Polar” world. That is even though the US seeks to dominate international affairs, it acknowledges and plans for the participation of other actors, state or non-state. By allowing for participation, it allows for competition, and as President Obama displays with his choice of Hillary Clinton for Secretary of State, competition has both winners and losers who can still join together for a common purpose. There is no absolute victory or defeat of good and evil, but rather a competition among partners.

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[The following is an essay written for Enduring America in response to Scott Lucas's piece Is Israel Winning a Covert War Against Iran.]

Earlier this week in The Daily Telegraph, it was revealed by former US intelligence operatives that Israel and the United States have allegedly been waging a covert campaign of kidnappings, assassinations, and sabotage against Iran’s nuclear program. In his post “Is Israel Winning a Covert War Against Iran?”, Professor Lucas proposes that this revelation is “a bit of ‘psychological warfare’ to keep Tehran off-balance over what might and might not be attempted to undermine its nuclear programme” as well as a “stick” in non-proliferation discussions.

However, the leak could also be interpreted as exactly the opposite of Prof. Lucas’s assessment. Not only is this revelation more concrete than mere “psychological” warfare. It is a Loss, not a Win, for Israel and a Carrot, not a Stick, for Iran.

There are already reports that the United States and Israel have targeted Iranian nuclear operatives in the past. In December 2006, the Iranian Deputy Defense Minister, Ali Reza Asgari, disappeared while travelling in Istanbul, Turkey. The Turkish newspaper Hurriyet speculated at the time that Asgari had hidden his family in Damascus, Syria before defecting to the West. However, according to the Iranian Labor News Agency, Asgari’s family was actually back in Iran. They denied Asgari would seek asylum with the west, and Iran publicly accused the US and Israel of kidnapping Asgari, a process known as “extraordinary rendition.” Four months later, US non-proliferation expert Robert Levinson disappeared under equally mysterious circumstances in Iran, a possible retaliation for Asgari.

There is also evidence possibly verifying the existence of the shell companies which, the Telegraph article suggests, are used to “dupe” and sabotage Iranian companies involved in the nuclear program. The US Treasury Department regularly designates, or “burns” to use apt intelligence lingo, corporations and financial entities it knows to be connected to illicit Iranian activities. For instance, in December 2008, in a possible closing act of the exiting Bush Administration, the Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) burned one of its largest shell companies, Assa Corporation.

World Check reported at the time “the corporate name chosen, Assa Corp. and Co., is deceptively similar to that of a well-known European corporation and of several US companies. This is a tactic frequently employed by financial criminals to confuse and mislead.” World Check also pointed out “the address of the New York corporation appears to be that of the law firm that organised the company, which could indicate that it is a shell company with no actual address. The company has no telephone listing in New York, has no Internet footprint, and does not have a principal place of business.”

Note there are never any subsequent indictments or investigations into these “designated” entities, just a simple burning, or public destruction, of the intelligence asset. While parallel information from Iran regarding their financial investigations is unavailable, it could be presumed that companies are burned by OFAC after being discovered by Iranian counter-intelligence officials.

The leak can be seen as a major loss, not a win, for Israel. As the CIA officer told the Telegraph, “Disruption is designed to slow progress on the programme, done in such a way that they don’t realise what’s happening.” Obviously, Iran is now fully aware of the operation. Israeli intelligence services will be, or more likely have already been, forced to abort all facets of the operation and Iranian nuclear officials will likely be even more closely scrutinized, controlled, and monitored by state security services.

One of the most grim aspects of Israel’s loss is, of course, the gruesome destruction of its intelligence assets remaining in Iran. Fars, an Iranian news agency, reported in November 2008 that three people suspected of spying for Israel, specifically a connection to Defense Minister Asgari’s kidnapping, were executed by the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps. CNN also reports on another man, Ali Ashtari, who “was convicted by [the IRGC] in June of spying for Israel’s intelligence agency, Mossad.” Furthermore “according to Ashtari’s ‘confession,’ published by Fars, he was a salesman who obtained high-end but security-compromised pieces of electronic equipment…and sold them to military and defense centers in Iran.” The covert war, clearly already suffering losses, will now possibly be completely dismantled.

With that in mind, it’s possible to see this as not only a “stick” for Israel, but also as a “carrot” for Iran. The consequences for Israel have been noted, but the direct benefits to Iran require more subtlty to discern. As Prof. Lucas points out in his analysis, the sources Radio Farda and STRATFOR, used in the Telegraph leak as well as other similar leaks, have been linked to the US Government and its intelligence agencies in the past. However, rather than interpreting their connection to US intelligence as a disqualification, it should more accurately be interpreted as adding legitimacy to the claims. Quite plainly, it could mean the US Government explicitly authorized the release of this information.

The benefit to Iran would be tangible evidence that the administration of President Barack Obama was ending the policy of regime change in Iran. Furthermore, he is willing to use US psychological operations assets previously devoted to targeting Iran to instead target Israel. It will be difficult for Iranian hardliners to argue that the US is a either a puppet or puppeteer of Zionist interests when Obama is burning Israeli intelligence assets on the front page of the Daily Telegraph.

If there is in fact an American and Israeli covert war of disruption being waged against Iran’s nuclear program, it is now in my judgement, completely over, with the results being a humiliating loss for Israel, a lowering of hostilities with Iran, and a vastly strengthened American diplomatic position vis-a-vis the Iranian nuclear negotiations.

UPDATE: Published

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Day 1: August 23, 2008

As soon as I got to Denver we headed over to some place called Ellitch Gardens, something like that. It was basically a second rate Six Flags, whatever that’s worth to you. It was sort of cool that Google and a few other massive corporations had bought out the entire park so all us media folks large and small could dick around on the tea cups for a while, but I have to admit, aside from the journalist badasses I met at the uptake, the whole party was a bit of a disappointment.

While anyone would appreciate free beer and roller coasters, the whole affair had absolutely nothing to do with politics, the election, or hell, anything to do with the country. Even the press badges didn’t mention what exactly we were there for. If Denver were in Guatemala it’s hard to imagine how it would have been any different.

If for some reason you thought that whole complaint about the mainstream media being bought out by corporations was just some sort of wacky leftist conspiracy theory, all the proof you need was live and in living color here in Denver last night.

Sadly the only protest happening was by a couple of pro-lifers asking why Obama loves to kill babies. I didn’t bother to ask them what’s “pro-life” about the Iraq war or torturing Muslims in Guantanamo, but it’s probably safe to assume your grandma could’ve gotten stoned off the cognitive dissonance.

As I’m writing this, it’s still early I’m the evening of day 2. Check back tomorrow for info on Sunday’s activities.

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More to come soon…!

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